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What Men Tell Me About Women

August 02, 2011

A whopping 45% of the men in the 7,000+ field of participants in the "Great Male Survey" conducted by AskMen.com are single. That may skew their views on questions like, "Do you consider sexting cheating if you are in a relationship?"

74% said, Yes.

Or, "Do you know anyone who has set up a fake Facebook account to conceal a relationship from his girlfriend/wife?"

85% said, No.

Really, guys? I can only conclude your friends are great secret-keepers or, contrary to the new thinking, men don't talk as much as women.

An interesting little throw-away line may help explain these stats: "Some women" participated in the survey too. Were they answering for their men?

The survey is fun--a playful little science post after last week's information-dense neuroscience read on Brain Bliss. (If you missed it, you must read!)

Some of the stats to make you giggle:

78% think they can tell if a woman is faking orgasm;

50% lie about the number of partners they've had;

48% would dump their partners if she got fat.

If American men thought like that, the divorce rate would surely quadruple.

So SexyPrime men, how would you answer these questions?

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime

January 16, 2011

I “met” M on Facebook and he quickly became my go-to guy on swinging and group sex and anal penetration. A swinger with his ex-wife for several years, he jokes that he is known in the California sex community as AssMaster. His primer on anal intercourse is the best I’ve ever read—and very supportive and empowering of women. He brings intelligence, humor and a fresh perspective to sex talk. This week we’ve had a dialogue inspired by two posts, Monday's Ask Auntie Sue and "How many times have you been properly in love?"

M—

You posed the question if a married person can be a decent affair paramour if they were not in a stable marriage. Well, the short answer is that I'm not sure exactly what you mean by a stable marriage, but I do have some experiences to share.

In the swinging lifestyle, MOST people give LIP SERVICE to being totally horrified by the idea of "affairs" where any of the participants has a spouse/significant other that is not fully aware of and consenting to their partner’s play. Various couples define that differently: some call it “cheating” if they are all sharing a bed and their partner engages in some play in the morning before their spouse wakes up, even if they were all playing the night before. Many call it cheating if they are not in the same room. Most would call it cheating if the spouse does not know about it, or if they broke any of their "rules". (I.e., if they have a no anal rule and they have anal with a playmate, I've heard that called “cheating”. Same with breaking the condom rule.)

I won't go into details about how much the vocalization of "no cheating by swingers" differs from reality other than to note that in my personal awareness, the cheating was rampant among swingers who were getting unapproved action behind their spouses back.

SexyPrime—

Did you cheat,, M?

M—

During my marriage, I never played without my wife's knowledge, and I have no reason to believe that she played without my knowledge...BUT we each repeatedly found ourselves as the other person playing with a swinger behind their spouse's back. What I typically heard from the women I played with (and not just the one's that were cheating), is that their husband's tried to exercise entirely too much control over who they played with, including several of them that said that their husband VETOED anyone he thought they were actually really into.

SexyPrime—

You can’t swing without a partner. So what do you do now?

M—

Married women! In recent years, both in the lifestyle, and in my "vanilla" dating, I've made the odd observation that most of the women who are into me are married, including my last five significant relationships both before and since my divorce. While four of those women are still married, and two of them appear to be making renewed efforts to make their marriages work, I would not describe ANY of those marriages as stable, yet those five affairs with women in unstable marriages were five of the hottest relationships I've ever enjoyed. In particular, I've noted that a middle aged woman in an unhappy marriage will try ANYTHING sexually. They are usually both angry and bored with their sex life, and once they decide to cross the line of infidelity, they have no rules.

That last part is a lot of the attraction for ME...I still don't understand why the women that are attracted to me seem to be mostly married, but I'm good with that.

.SexyPrime—

I can see where you would be the place to go when a woman has decided to let go and try anything. How do you compare female swingers with vanilla women?

M—

As a group, swinger women are more insecure about their sexual skills than their vanilla sisters. I think the primary reason for that is that vanilla women generally have very few chances (not counting porn) to see other women having sex. Swinger women see other women squirting, or deep throating, or enjoying anal, or making their husband moan in ecstacy, and it makes them feel like they have shortcomings. Vanilla women don't see that so they have no reason to doubt their skills.

It is easy for women to discount what they see in porn, as they should...harder to discount watching a woman from six inches away who is bouncing on your husband's cock and taking the whole thing when you can’t, like the young woman who wrote to Auntie Sue this week.

SexyPrime—

Yes, when I sent you her letter and pictures for consultation, you immediately saw the pics as their kit for posting on swing sites—and said the young woman’s insecurity about her skills was normal.

M—

I thought the letter did in fact read like a youngish swinger woman who is excited about their sexual experimentation, and is feeling a bit intimidated by other women who can take all of her man's cock when she can't—a situation compounded by her insecurity over the rarity of his orgasms which I addressed in my letter to you about the rarity of my own orgasms.

SexyPrime—

But do you really think swingers have superior skills?I don’t have your insider perspective, but I have been the voyeur/journalist at swing parties and sex clubs, but I don't recall being knocked out by the skill level of most of the people I saw, men or women.One party at a house in a Dallas suburb was like a trip back in time—big hair, fake nails and boobs, extreme tans on both sexes. I expected the Herb Tarlek character from "WKRP" to step from behind a drape any minute. And lots of sexual posing! I am sure there were more faked orgasms in that room than in the average suburban neighborhood on any given weekend.But, yes, I can see that it would all look different if you were a young woman watching someone else take all your husband's cock when you couldn't.

M—

I do NOT assume that swinging women are more skilled than vanilla women. ON AVERAGE, swinging women have a more varied degree of experience, and many of them seem quite insecure about their sexual skills compared to vanilla women, Many vanilla women who could really stand to read your column and take some good advice, have an inflated opinion of their sexual skills.

I've often been told that many men THINK they are very skilled, and are not. Since men are not my preferred sexual partners, I can only say that is what women tell me, and I assume it is true. I have just observed that among vanilla women, their skills and their belief in their skills has little correlation, much like what I hear about men.

SexyPrime—

Yes, I hear the same thing from men and women: S/he doesn’t know she s/he is doing in bed. Often they are the same people who spout the doctrine of soul mate/sexual spirituality love in which technique is de-emphasized. People, if you don’t have game, you can’t open that soul portal. Technique allows the emotions to connect.

Otherwise, there’s a lot of faking going on, in the name of god or otherwise.

M—

Oh don't even get me started about the posing and faking at big swing parties and clubs. And while the fake nails and missile tits get a lot of attention, the most bizarre was the mainstreaming of "stripper shoes", i.e. completely ridiculous high heels, often transparent.

I have always considered the larger parties and swing clubs to be the Lowest Common Denominator of group sex for the reasons you cited. On one occasion, at a major swing club near San Diego (that is no longer in business), I was in the orgy room (which was essentially seven mattresses side by side with a walk space at one end) and I noticed that there were 14 people fucking, and it was as 7 couples with all 7 of them doing missionary. The larger crowds tended toward the most conventional sexual expression.

Smaller groups lead to more experimentation and more serious pleasuring. The sweet spot seems to be the range of between two and six people in the room. More than that and it breaks into couples doing the simplest acts while trying not to get kicked in the head by other couples.

It bothers me that a group (theoretically) open to non-monogamous group sex can be so incredibly narrow in their sexual range...and even look down on the "freaks" who were more experimental. Many couples had elaborate sets of rules that barred them from trying anything creative with their non-spousal playmates.

I love swinging, and many of the wonderful people I’ve met among swingers, but I could never adopt the Polyanna view of swinging that so many swingers espouse. Some of the nastier aspects of swinging are very common and any couple that goes there should be aware of them, and not be blindsided by the utopian rhetoric of many self-appointed spokespeople in the lifestyle.

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime

November 12, 2010

I am playing catch-up today so I won't write long, but I want to catch up with you first. While traveling lately, I have had many conversations with men and women in bars, pubs, airport and train station waiting rooms and Starbucks. God, where would I be without Starbucks? There was a point last week where I am sure I would have bled the Bold blend had you pricked me.

So I will shape much of this into posts and questions. But for now, a few thoughts:

Why are women in their twenties so deluded about "relationship?"

Typical encounter:

22 year old blonde: "I have a great relationship."

Me: What makes it great?

She: "Oh, he is perfect for me, everything I want."

Me: Is the sex good?

She: "Yes!"

Me: Do you have orgasms?

She: "Well, no......"

Within ten minutes she confessed he doesn't consider what they have a "relationship," that the sex doesn't last as long as it takes her to talk about it--and more.

Are women meaner than men?

So much vindictiveness out there....oy.

Will aging Baby Boomers never get over themselves?

Time is running out--and they are still Me, me, me.

Do men care more about pleasing women than women do about pleasing men--or do I just attract the guys who want to know how to make it better for their women?

Women don't ask me how to make it better for their men. What's up with that?

My favorite book of the moment is surprisingly--because I did not expect to like it!-- Life by Keith Richards (Little Brown). It's honest, gritty and compelling. I've read books about rock'n'roll before this one--but Keith makes the scene come alive.

He describes the awe the young Rolling Stones felt for the performers they admired, including Little Richard and Bo Diddley, and their surprise at quickly surpassing the music giants in public appeal. His decriptions of touring in the 60s and 70s are alive with details. His fear of the young teen girls who mobbed them is hilarious. At one point he says the band spent more time planning their concert exit strategies than rehearsing which didn't matter anyway because the screming girls drowned out the music. The girls tossed their underwar on stage, then peed themselves in their excitement.

"One night somewhere up north, it could have been York, I remember walking back out onto the stage after the show, after they'd cleaned up all of the underwear and everything. There was one old janitor, night watchman, and he said, 'Very good show. Not a dry seat in the house."

The Rolling Stones are my favorite rock band; "Exile on Main Street", the best rock album ever and "Satisfaction" the ultimate song.

But I never would have wet myself over the band.

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime.

October 02, 2010

“I don’t know why we stopped having sex.It’s probably something I did, but I don’t know what,”my SexBabesofNYC client said over our lunch at Cipriani’s. (And to people who said no one will pay a lot of money to talk—Oh, ha!)

“I was stunned by what you wrote recently about men [in “Diary of an Affair, part three;The Domination Tests”]:

“They are the men whose dog persona is more ‘whipped’ than ‘dawg!’ pulling after work into the parking lots of Hooters, Fridays, Houlihans, Rub Tuesdays—into the strip clubs and the sports bars—no longer looking for love, yet still longing, even if their desire is buried deep. The firm young female flesh on display connects them with their youth, when last they felt desired.”

“Jesus Christ, that is the truth," he said. "It’s the same truth for the Wall Street man walking into Stone Street Tavern or Trinity Wall and the Upper East Side Sugar Daddy meeting his busty babe at Bemelmans for champagne.It’s the engine driving clubs with bottle service charging a couple hundred bucks for Kettle One.”

Women still hold, if not all the cards, the best hand in the game of sex.Whether she is the prospective hook-up or the wife, he’s not getting it if she says No—and he’s not getting it any way she doesn’t want to give it.Men still have the greater comfort level with payment in one form or another—meaning they can get a reasonable facsimile of anything she ever gave them or didn’t.(When I asked “Will women pay for sez?” many emailed back and said, Hell, no.)In this Great Wall Street Marriage Stand-Off, she wielded the cut-off but he optioned the buy-in.He prefers Call girls, The Girlfriend Experience.—to Sugar Babes.They ask him about his day andkiss his tired brow before swallowing his cum.

But here is the dirty little secret:they also listen to him and sometimes only listen to him.The man pays for sex but sometimes doesn’t exercise his carnal prerogative.He just wants to talk.

It would drive women nuts to know how often the man who blanches at “can we talk?” pays for sex but opts to talk.

Do husbands and wives stop having sex because they have also stopped talking, and listening, to one another?

His wife is planning a big party for their twentieth wedding anniversary.They haven’t had sex in “something over a year” and the time before that was “something over six months or maybe close to a year.”He can’t remember exactly.

“We don’t talk about it.I admit I am curious.I would like to know why she stopped wanting me sexually.But I am not going to ask.”

As it does in so many of the estimated twenty million sexless marriages in this country, the lovemaking slowed down like a carnival ride until the day someone noticed it had stopped altogether.

“Do you want to know the most frequent reasons for heterosexual bed death?” I asked.

He grinned at the play on “lesbian bed death” and said, NO.

“I want to tell you about the time we had sex in a hotel room when she was on her period.It looked like we had been sacrificing small animals in there when we left.She sucked my thumb after as she was falling asleep.”

He told me about it.Very hot sex.It happened about two years into their marriage—and it never happened again.A woman would want to analyze the story and look for the clues as to why it never happened again.He wanted to remember, re-live it.I glanced into his lap and noticed the erection pushing against the fabric of his trousers.He was happy in the moment.

Tomorrow, a new Sex Wardrobe Basics technique:

THE BOYFRIEND JEANS MUTUAL HAND JOBS

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime

August 13, 2010

Maybe I was too hasty in writing off boys.Was it simply a reaction to the former Boy Toy’s memoir in progress—Sleeping with Cougars?

Only a teenage girl investing romantic qualities in a dolt who has none is more romantic than the aging man—and, of course, his affections are perhpas more likely to be handed to the woman barely out of her teens than to one nearer his own age.

My friend A, into his fifties, tells me:“I was an asshole to women until I was treated badly by one woman I loved and at the same time began experiencing erectile difficulties.I was devastated.”

Dramatically changing his lounge lizard persona, he became the consummate romantic man, turned pleasing women into an art form and recently married the “love of my life”(who is half his age.)

Now my friend Hugh Hunte, into his fifties, confesses he is trying to fall out of a crush.He is hurt by her rejection.But in three months of gentle pursuit, he didn’t even get a passionate kiss.How can he be clinging to his sadness over what strikes me as a minor loss—and, certainly ten years ago, would have struck him as laughable?(Hugh, darling, I can hear the younger you laughing at “the poor schmuck” who pursued a woman after she put him up in the guest room when he stayed over.)

They met at a Harlem jazz bar.An amateur musician, he was playing sax.She was in his line of sight; and he played to her (as I’ve watched him do before.)

“I kept looking at her.Basic black dress, great shoes, strappy high-heeled sandals"--Hugh likes the ladies’ shoes---“Graceful, slow moving.I sat down and talked to her but I got no special treatment.She was cordial.When she came back two weeks later, I put on the full court press,

“Who are you, what do you do?We had a quiet, gentle conversation.”

A month later, she invited him to her home in New Jersey for dinner.He slept in her guest bedroom, no sex, and she took him to the train in the morning.

“I wasn’t disappointed because I thought I was moving forward, I thought this could be something serious.The seriousness of it was interesting enough for me not to push her.”

She reminded him of his beautiful late wife, who died of cancer.

“She was quiet, reserved.Talking about past lovers, I could hear the last one’s laugh above the crowd, but I couldn’t hear this woman.She was a lady.”

But there was no warmth.She rarely made eye contact when they dined out—and always took the calls on her cell phone.

“We didn’t even progress to the hand-holding stage.That was the longest time I’ve ever gone out with someone in my life without having it go somewhere.”

Hugh is retired from the NYPD, the elite ESU, Emergency Services Unit.He’s a marksman, a scuba diving instructor, certified sailing captain—and more. He lives most of the year on his estate on St. Thomas, in the rainforest with a private beach 1100 feet below. When he calls to chat, I hear him against a chorus of singing frogs, cochins. In fact, he is Manhattan now to meet with investors about turning the place into a boutique lifestyle hotel.

“I knew it was not going to happen one night when I was out with an old friend, sharing wine and cheese and olives –and she was more engaged with me than this woman ever was.I told my friend that I was energetically passionate about a woman, but I feared if I got her into bed, she’d never make a sound.

The graceful lady ended it with a text message that said, “I don’t want what you want.”

He replied with a Barbara de Angeles quote:“You never lose by loving You always lose by holding back,”

Was she “holding back”—or just not that into him? He’s an aging boomer guy craving intimate connection.Wistfully, he said, "I want someone to ask me about my dreams because I still has them."

He wants to want to hear her voice and to share a dog with her.

“Did you try to kiss her?” I asked.

“I was prepared, teeth brushed, breath mints, bottle of Listerine in car.I was ready to say to her,‘I want to hold you and feel you breath in my arms’ but the kiss did not happen and barely a hug.

“Someone had been cruel to her, but it wasn’t me.”

Maybe she just wanted to be friends.

I might give Hugh a teasing bad time about this crush if I didn't have one of my own on a voice and projected persona of the Sexy Morning Man.

But Hugh, darling, you are about to change the luxury island travel industry. Do you have time for this anyway? Keep your eye on the ball.

Photo Credit: "Sexy Heels with Ball" on Photobucket

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime.

March 18, 2010

The shocker:Many men and women wrote at length to say they are not that happy with dating nor are they often satisfied in hooking-up.Yes, even the men report next day buyer’s remorse, rooted in the knowledge that she didn’t come and he didn’t perform well.People, listen:Try doing it NOT drunk.Drink a little to relax—and then cut yourself off.

Some conclusions from the results—

Black male professionals and white women over forty dominate the game (as do black women when they get out from under the crushing weight of cultural expectation and expand their pool of acceptable men.)

Women in their thirties are fed up with hooking up and have retreated in cynical non-dating or internet match dating or just plain old desperate dating (I love Liz Weber’s comment on why she tried internet dating:“I know how to fall in love and how to fuck, but I have never dated.”)

My perception is that many young women in every racial group, but especially minorities, are not fully sexually empowered

And the respondents themselves were unafraid to draw conclusions, usually negative, about the other gender.

A 45 year old divorced white woman wrote, “Older white men (over forty) are evolved and likely unavailable or creepy or clueless.”

From a fifty year old divorced white man:“I thought everything was great.On a Sunday morning after spending the night—good sex!—she said, ‘This isn’t working for me’ and she left. Who understands women?”

Yet men and women are driven to mate—even knowing they will have more disappointing first dates (or hook-ups) than not.

A married white man in his thirties said he never considered a relationship with a woman who had sex on the first date—but did call her after because “I didn’t want to ruin it for the other men.”Someone married him?Really?

And a 38 year-old white single woman wrote, “I just want to find a man of my own.I’m lowering my standards.I want a husband, home, baby.And I am tired of dating and hooking up!”

That attitude is what got the above jerk married, isn’t it?

Europeans are more casual about relationships—and seem to enjoy them more tooFrench women don’t get fat eating bread, cheese and chocolate and drinking wine—and they don’t obsess over men either.

The happiest daters in SexyPrime’s Dating/Mating/Hooking-Up Survey were women over forty and men under thirty.Hmmm……that would be cougars and their cubs, wouldn’t it?There’s something to be said for the absence of biological pressure.

From Emo Man, an ever hopeful dater whose heart breaks easily:“I don’t like one-night stands.They work into a two to four week fling at best.What if you want more than that?”

What if most of us want more than that even if we won’t/can’t admit it?We are stuck with dating and hooking-up, with the possibility of rejection and disappointment, with taking some risk or we aren’t very likely to get anything.Remember that joke Woody Allen told at the end of “Annie Hall,” the classic relationship comedy and one of my all-time favorite films?

A man says to his therapist:“My brother thinks he’s a chicken, but I can’t tell him he’s not because we need the eggs.”Yes, we all need the eggs.

January 28, 2010

The reader is a married man in his forties; and he was married during the affair he describes.

"Do I have any taboos?

"Only as a sort-of mental shopping list for things that I’ve heard or read about but haven’t had an opportunity to try yet. My experience is that kinky is good and sometimes the kinkier the better so don’t rule it out until you’ve tried it and found it un-arousing. Hey, what can I say, bodily fluids used to freak me out a little but I soon learned that a woman isn’t likely gonna swallow your come if you don’t show a willingness to go down on her right after you come inside her and/or deep kiss her while her mouth is still half full. Get over it! It’s a lot less icky than walking a dog in New York City or changing a baby’s diaper.

"Whips? Chains? BDSM? Been there. Done that. Freaked out the dog! And it was perhaps the single most loving, and most sexually intense, relationship I’ve ever had. If she called tonight, I’d probably be on a plane before I stopped to think about whatever work needs to get done soon.

"It started with a mutual admiration for the literary qualities and arousal power of The Story of O and some herbal relaxation of inhibitions. She liked to be spanked (but not with the lack of style that the Zola man seems to exhibit). She asked me to pull her hair while we were fucking. No, harder, really hard! We went shopping in a hardware store and she tried on dog collars in the aisle. We ended up deciding that leather beat metal cuffs for us. She asked me to slap her face while we were going at it, not hard, not to leave marks, just enough to get her off even more than she was already getting off. When she asked me to use my belt, she did want marks on her backside and she wanted me to fuck her from behind while her ass was still burning from the stripes—and she said she loved it that way because it made her feel like I was using her and that got her off even more.

"She liked to please. She liked not having to decide. She liked to suck cock. She liked to take it deep and she liked it when I took control. I hadn’t really ever seen myself as the Master type (and still don’t, really, although I know that I can do it and I know what it can really arouse me) but I do like the woman I’m with to get plenty of whatever gets her off and she got off on submission, some pain and surrender of control and so that’s what I gave her. It turned out that it got me off really well, too, but I think that was as much about seeing her powerful response and feeling a sense of power at being able to take it further and further the more she showed she wanted. She liked being played with, feeling a little used, obeying orders and getting off thereby. I liked fucking her while she was getting off and it was a marvelous mutual feedback arousal and release system while it lasted.

"Was it taboo? It wasn’t like anything else I’d ever done but it evolved completely naturally and it didn’t feel transgressive—although it didn’t strike me as material for casual conversation or revelation. It worked, very well, for both of us and we liked it and we kept wanting more of it.

"It ended for reasons completely unrelated to our physical attraction and activities and I miss her still and I love her still. One of the great regrets of my life.

"Taboo: Causing emotional pain. Hurting the one you love."

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime

Yes, he was one of those guys who asked permission before he touched a breast. Is "nice" really the word for that? How about "yech"?

After a long dry spell, Todd responded to what he considered "the Craigslist freaks--women who needed a man to dominate them." He hooked up with Angelica who wanted "a sweet, funny, affectionate, silly and loyal guy" who would also "dominate" her behind closed doors. Specifically, she wanted to be held down and spanked and have her hair pulled.

While he never considered himself "dominate," the desperately horny Todd realized "I could spank, I could hold, I could pull."

"Since I got divorced, every woman I've dated has wanted me to tie her up or spank her. Is it something about me or is this what women want these days?" My friend Bill is a cultivated, mild-mannered blazer and khaki pants kind of guy in his late 40s, and his girlfriends tend to be 30-ish bankers or lawyers as buttoned-down and Upper East Side-looking as he is. I understood Bill's confusion, but I tried to explain.

"Almost any woman Bill would date in New York would be up for some highly stylized submission. These women are tired of androgyny, sick of men who treat them like pals. And they want to feel the boot occasionally. The wish to be dominated doesn't extend to important stuff, however, like choosing restaurants and movies. As my friend John says, American women want to be 'forced' to do the things they already want to do. It's sexy to be tied up and kissed, but boring to be dragged along for an afternoon of auto parts shopping."

Yes, exactly, Babes. Men--well, especially white men--have been socialized to treat us as carefully in private as they are expected to do in the workplace. No sexual harassment at the office or at home. Truth is: Many, if not most, of us do like a man to be at least somewhat dominant sexually. Respect me in the world, darlin', but push me against the wall and take me hard and fast when we're alone. (And be smart enough to realize that I also like it long and soft and sweet sometimes too.)

As I've written before--and been castigated for writing it--African American men are more comfortable with their sexuality. They have not internalized as many of the male/sex negative messages as white guys have. I have a running joke with an African American guy pal who teases me that there is no "white culture." I have offered to make him a fluffernutter sandwich on white bread while wearing my heels and pearls, but he just isn't ready for white culture yet. All joking aside, white culture in this country is rooted in Puritanism; and I am not the first to remark upon the sexual constraints of Puritan culture.

There is nothing sexier than having a man tell me to drop to my knees and suck his cock. (Of course, I have to be into that man. Otherwise, he risks a stiletto in the shins.) Black men are better at reading the sexual situation than white men are--and, in my experience, more capable of pulling off this hot move because they are in tune with their own sexuality and ours.

Sometimes I like a few slaps on my ass too. What's up with that?

Ann Marlow explains it beautifully:

"In the absence of most other symbols of femininity and masculinity, and the disappearance of most of the rituals of courtship, S/M reintroduces the powerfully erotic idea of gender difference. And of course it's the most successful women who are into it. It's the successful men who hire dominatrixes, too. But if women are now able to embrace symbolic submissiveness, it's because they are starting to have a choice, and because they're nostalgic -- not for a submissive role, but for a world with any roles and rules at all."

Viva la gender difference!

Yes, with social progress comes some disappointment and disillusionment. We don't want to go back; in fact, we want more progress. (Women's pay is still only 78% of men's; and women are still more harshly judged for "promiscuous" behavior than men are.) But alone in an intimate setting, we want a man to be a man. Most of all, we want to exercise our right to choice--playing shifting roles in our sex lives.

Todd Farley figured that out, with a little help from Angelica.

Here is the conclusion to his essay (and Todd, SexyPrime loves you!):

"I share this tale not to brag--not to let people know I'm the sort of dude who often has a hot chick bound up and gagged in the bedroom closet--but simply to remind the kind of smug and arrogant guy I once was that just because a woman likes to have a riding crop taken to her pussy, that doesn't make her a freak. All it makes her is someone not afraid of her own desires, a lesson I'd have been well served to learn a couple decades ago."

November 21, 2008

I had an interesting conversation about the new sexuality in the city the other night with Richard Anton Diaz of Sexy Spirits, Palagia, founder of One Leg Up and some friends.

What is the new sexuality?

Women are in the midst of our own private sexual revolution. Bi-Girls rule the downtown scene and prevail at sex clubs and sex parties where the single female is sought after by many couples. Cougars are on the prowl; and we are thought to be sexy and sophisticated while older guys after Kittens are old guys chasing young girls. Women have amazing new sex toys, including vibes so beautiful, they are object d'art.

Yet Palagia sounded a dissenting note when she said, "The female fantasy is not girl-on-girl. Women admit to me that they fantasize having two guys but do it with another girl to please their men."

I don't think all bisexual women are doing it to please men. For years, swingers have been telling me that the bisexual wife calls the shots--and that women who aren't bisexual usually aren't enthusiastic about swing parties. Moreover, girls tell me that they like playing with other girls--OR go there in their disappointment with boyfriends, not to please them.

(Palagia also said that, in her thirties, she is now "tired of teaching men" and understands why so many women give up on them, at least for a while.)

Here is a common scenario: Two twentysomething editors I know, roommates, fell into one another's drunken arms one night, after weeping/commiserating over their failed relationships. They had sex, declared themselves lesbians, were advertising for "a boy to join us in a threesome" on craigslist within three months. They told me about their need for cock in a crowded, noisy bar one night.

"Why do we want cock?" and "Why do we need cock?" they kept asking me. "We love each other! We're happy together! Why do we want cock?"

I answered loudly: "Because cocks are so much fun to play with!" The bar grew silent; our drinks were free the rest of the night.

In another three months, the girls were iving in separate countries. One is in a relationship with a man; the other has remained happily on the Sapphic path.

I don't think bisexual behavior in women is all about pleasing the guy. But what do the rest of you think?

By the way, I read on Page Six in The New York Post today that Lindsey Lohan and her GF Samantha Ronson are fighting. Rumors have her "going straight back to guys" if the two split. Now what do you think about that?

The other part of the new sexuality, the evolution of men--we'll discuss another day.

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October 29, 2008

That oft-pilloried staple of women’s magazines, relationship advice, was recently skewered on Open Salon (the democratic side of Salon) by Skeptic Turtle, a rational Midwesterner whose bio informs us that he was in D.C. during the early Bush years. (I know D.C. well enough to understand why he left there a skeptic.) While leafing through his wife’s copy of Women’s Health magazine, he came across an article, “15 Moments That Define A Relationship”--a concept familiar to those of us who read the mags. His comments on the fifteen points are smart and funny and make the point that these moments are all about her reading his signs and interpreting his feelings. He has little to say on the subject of their “relationship.” (Could it exist largely inside her own head?) Worse, she never seems to stop and question if he is right for her.

Here is an amuse bouche from Skeptic Turtle‘s thought-provoking essay:

“15. When you commit--we're talking long-term commit--to each other... it's a watershed moment when you find yourself so profoundly lucky that someone you adore so much feels exactly the same way about you.

"The first instance in the list where his express thoughts about the relationship, versus "signs" like being offered coffee or a remote, count for something. I guess number 3 is him calling you his "girlfriend," but otherwise nothing else he says is considered a watershed moment in the relationship.”

RELATIONSHIP! I hate the word. (I always say: I can teach you sex techniques and report on sex research and tell you what men and women say about sexual behavior, but I can’t fix the rest of it for you. On your own there.) For years I’ve listened to women talk about “relationship” as if it were an entity, a thing, a possession, a financial and reproductive goal. Rarely do I get a clear idea of the man involved. Who is he? How do they relate to one another? Is he lover, sex buddy, husband, BF, all or none of the above? Is he a real human being? When she talks about “him“, he sounds like a cypher, the bland subject of articles like this one.

Recently I shared a speaking venue with a relationship expert, albeit, a young New Age, California style woman who is redefining monogamy--basically to suit her man’s desire to have a “committed relationship” with her while playing around. I am not disparaging that lifestyle, merely noting that I got the distinct impression he, not she, was calling the shots on this one. My bet for her future: In five years she will be redefining monogamy again after he has left her for some hot babe demanding at least the illusion of exclusiveness. That’s how it goes, Babes; the woman who plays her own game, whatever that game may be, wins in the end.

Without passion, she spoke of the “container” that is “relationship.”

“Container?” I asked. “Like a coffin? A coffin is a container.”

Do women really need advice on how to get a man into a box with them? And is creating a new box the definition of re-defining monogamy?

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime